April 16, 2008
Contact: Caroline Jenkins Hanna
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—On Friday, April 25, the Amherst College Health Economics Symposium—a daylong program featuring discussions about the dynamics of children’s health insurance coverage, the effects of malpractice liability on physician practice and prospects for health care reform, among others—will take place at the school’s Alumni House from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The gathering, which is free and open to the public, will feature presentations by coordinator Jessica Wolpaw Reyes ’94, economics professor at Amherst, outside experts and students.

On the schedule are the following talks, as well as welcoming and concluding remarks and a reception:

  • 10:10 a.m.—“Crisis or Rational Response? Malpractice Liability and Specialization,” Professor Reyes.
  • 10:50 a.m.—“The Dynamics of Children’s Health Insurance, 1986-1999,” Amherst alumna Lara Shore-Sheppard ’91, professor of economics at Williams College.
  • 11:45 a.m.—“Explaining Declining Teen Pregnancy,” Jenny Ying, and “Medicaid Expansions and Parental Health,” Jessica Beck, both Williams College seniors.
  • 1:15 p.m.—“Non-Medical Determinants of Health,” Amherst alumnus Douglas Norton ’05, doctoral student in economics at Yale University.
  • 1:45 p.m.—“Health Care Reform: Economic Theory and Political Reality,” Katherine Baicker, professor of health economics in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health.
  • 2:30 p.m.—“Achieving Diabetes Prevention,” Jay Breines, executive director of the Holyoke Health Center.

The colloquium is sponsored by the family of economics major Gregory Smith ’09, the Eastman Fund and Amherst’s Department of Economics. For more information, go to https://cms.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/economics/events.

###